Blessings Author:Avrum B. Organick This is a love story. In the mid-1950's a young doctor comes to the Navajo Reservation to study and to use new antibiotics for patients who have demonstrated resistance to existing anti-tuberculosis drugs. There he meets a beautiful Navajo girl. Together explore the spectacular Navajo country, she introduces him to the ceremonials of her peop... more »le and they fall in love. Their eventual marriage brings into conflict the differing world views of the two societies from which they come. He is Jewish. She, though sent to a Catholic boarding school on the Reservation, feels more in touch with the religion of her own Navajo people. He promises to bring her back to the Navajo Reservation after one year in New York City because he knows her own home is where she will feel happiest. But he fails to keep his promise, moving to different parts of the country in pursuit of his own academic career. She agrees, though reluctantly, to every one of these moves. Some of their differences are resolved as she, feeling a close similarity between her native religion and his, volunteers and accepts conversion to the Jewish religion. In spite of this, the couple encounters prejudice of different types. She feels the hostility against herself as a person of color in the South, the coldness of her mother-in-law, and the hauteur of other, better-educated doctors' wives. He is called "squaw-man" by rednecks in Gallup, and made to feel unwelcome at sacred Navajo ceremonial. They have children and the children feel comfortable in both worlds. After 20 years he brings her back to the Southwest. There, in moments of happiness, they express their joy in the form of the blessings of their respective peoples.« less